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I was never a fan of goal-setting... and even less of a fan of New Year's Resolutions. For a long while, I was working within a framework called The Goal Cultivator courtesy of Dan Sullivan (aka The Strategic Coach). I felt like his perspective on goal cultivating versus goal setting was a new paradigm, and - in looking back at those initial exercises - it's amazing to see how profound that experience was in shaping my present-day situation (special thanks to my dear friend, Barry Pascal, for introducing me to the work of The Strategic Coach). Every year, Chris Brogan (Trust Agents, The Impact Equation, etc...) does an exercise he calls, My 3 Words For The Year. Brogan explains it like this: "In an effort to tell bigger stories, I've found that the concept of three words allows me to think in more dimensions about what I want to do with my life and it lets me apply lots of tangible goals instead of what most people do when they focus on just a finite task. It's a bit like turbo-charged goal planning." He unveils how his process for coming up with his three words for the year and unveils them today, January 1st of each new year (you can see his 2013 words right here: My 3 Words for 2013). Others have publicly followed suit. Check out what C.C. Chapman has chosen: Menu, Build and Minimize in 2013 and Christopher S. Penn: 3 Words For 2012, 3 Words For 2013.

Going public.

I've been doing this exercise ever since Brogan first introduced it. Each year, around December - without prompting - I find myself starting to think about my three words. The pressure is on. It's a good pressure, but it's pressure. All of us hope to do more, be more and achieve more. Nailing it down to three words is always a welcome challenge. This year, I decided to make them public. Part of the work I did within The Goal Cultivator program proved to me that "putting it out there" makes it real, tangible and easier to focus on. So, here's goes everything...

My 3 words for 2013:

Starvation. Am I willing to starve for it? All too often I find myself caught in doing things (some big, some small) that fall outside of my unique abilities or my interest. I wind up doing them for all of the wrong reasons, and the results speak for themselves. In 2013, one area of focus will be starvation. Am I willing to starve for it? How many projects and pieces of work will I create that I would be willing to starve for? It's going to be a tough benchmark, but a worthy one.

Beyond. Every time I push myself beyond an established comfort zone, things begin to get juicy. As life evolves (i.e. I get older), I find myself getting trapped in those "old man ways." Things are great, I get comfortable... why rock that boat? 2013 will be about always pushing beyond that comfort zone in everything from how I think about the work that I am doing, what Twist Image is (and can be), and my own physical, spiritual and mental conditioning. In everything that I do (and think), I will push beyond it to see what others may not be looking at... yet.

Student. I bought an acoustic guitar right before I started writing my second book, CTRL ALT Delete (which comes out on May 21st, 2013). I stopped playing it due to workload. Even when I take it out and tinker with it, I'm not advancing. I need lessons. I need to be student of the guitar and study it. It's not just the guitar. That was simply an analogy to everything that I do with each and every waking moment. I get to work with some of the best brands in the world, and they're interested in my opinion. I wind up playing the teacher role a plenty in my day to day life. I usually take a handful of personal siestas to attend conferences where I can be the student (TED and Google Zeitgeist are two of them). I read as many books as I physically can. It's not enough. To be better, to become more, I must become the student that much more often. It's a lesson that I first learned from studying Bruce Lee (thanks, Tony Blauer, too :) and it's one that I am going to focus much more on in 2013.

So... what's your plan? What are your three words for 2013? Share away...